


Sunshine Shadows

by Winterling42



Series: Ravnica Days [3]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Arguing, Gen, Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:04:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8145025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: The Gatewatch spent three months on Ravnica before plot-important things started happening again. This is one day from those three months.This argument takes place directly before Tea and Coffee. Jace is finally back on Ravnica, and Ral is displeased with his absence.





	

“Where _were_ you?” Ral had either stunned the Azorius guards outside, or he had been waiting so long that his request for a meeting had finally gone through. Jace took a moment to put his head on the new business request forms he’d just pulled off the stack next to his desk, and then he forced a smile onto his face just in can this _was_ guild business.

“Guildmage Zarek, how wonderful to see you again. What can I do for the Izzet League.”

“Damn it, Beleren. I’m not here to file requests for the League.” Ral looked even more annoyed than usual, and for a moment Jace wondered when he’d started calculating ’normal’ expressions for Ral Zarek. “Where the hell have you _been_ for three months?”

Jade blinked back at him, a frown starting to grow on his face. He should have expected this, especially from Ral. But it was only two weeks since Emakrul’s assault on Thraben, and though a runaway indrik couldn’t drag the admission out of him, Jace was relieved to have nothing to do but sit at a desk and look at forms whose letters didn’t squirm into tentacles at the corners of his eyes.

“I was busy,” he said at last, which was absolutely, demonstrably the worst thing he could have said.

The canister at Ral’s hip flashed ominously as lightning was funneled into it. “Right. You were _busy_. This doesn’t have anything to with your date, does it?”

The sarcasm in the spark-mage’s voice was thick enough to cut, but Jace just stared back blankly. Of all the comebacks he’d expected.

“Date?”

“The last time anyone saw the Living Guildpact was three months ago at Milena’s, with not one but _two_ mysterious guests. And because you up and _disappeared_ right after that, I can guess that at least one of them was a planeswalker. So what? Did you just need a _vacation_?”

Jace laughed, despite the the scowl Ral gave him. “Vacation? You want to call that…” He leaned forward, suddenly desperate to explain. It was odd, how much he wanted Ral to understand and how hard it was to put into words everything that had happened. Had his last night on Ravnica really been the disastrous dinner with Liliana? How strange that she was living down the street now, and that they’d both sworn to defend the Multiverse. Hadn’t she used those exact words to describe him?

“Ral. Listen. I was on Zendikar. The Eldrazi are – were – inter-planar beings that three ancient planeswalkers imprisoned there. It’s sort of my fault they got out, and when Gideon asked…I had to help. I thought I’d only be gone a little while; they needed my help with the puzzle of the hedrons.”

Jace stood, summoning an illusion of a hedron much like the one he’d kept in his apartment. For scale he added a few kor dangling from their ropes. “But their whole world was in danger. The Eldrazi exist – existed – to devour planes. Entire worlds. And Zendikar was next.”

His hedron shrank as he zoomed out, showing a pale copy of the network they’d tried to use against Ulamog at Sea Gate. Then, later, the two titans standing side-by-side in the empty bay. Ral looked, at best, uninterested. “You know. When you said you were Ravnican to the core, I almost believed you. But the second some other plane has a more interesting puzzle, you run off.”

“This wasn’t a _puzzle_. This was hundreds of lives. A whole _world_ was dying. Should I have sat in my office and signed forms?”

Ral shook his head. “Look, it’s not that I don’t understand –“

“But you _don’t_ ,” Jace said, frustrated. He let the illusion disperse from the top of his desk, only to collect the wisps of mana and reshape them into something bigger.

The office disappeared from around them, paper and furniture and the afternoon sunlight. Jace built the blocks of Thraben’s square back around himself, Emakrul’s half-human abominations spitting tentacles and worse things at Liliana’s zombies. The Gatewatch lay behind him as if dead, Jace’s thin blue spell all that was left between them and the thing on the horizon. It was towards her that Ral looked, and why not? Even in an illusion, everything was drawn towards her. She was inevitable.

Jace pulled away from the spell, allowing a fuzz to fall over everything. Even so, the dark familiarity of the scene weighed on him like a physical thing clinging to his shoulders, whispering in his ear.

“Innistrad. The last Eldrazi was there, and I found her turning the plane into…something. We don’t know what.”

“We?” Ral asked, but he sounded uncertain now.

“The Gatewatch. Gideon, the planeswalker you hid from Lightning Bug. Nissa, an elf from Zendikar. Chandra, a pyromancer. And now, after all of this, Liliana Vess. We swore to protect the worlds from things like _her_.” Jace let the illusion fade away, a violet nimbus shining around Emakrul a moment longer than it should have. He swallowed to get rid of the taste of corruption in his mouth and leaned his hands on the desk, watching Ral closely. “That’s why I might not always be on Ravnica. There are some things that are bigger than just one plane.”

“So you’ll just be running off every few weeks now, is that it?” Instead of sounding humbled by what he had seen, Ral sounded incredulous. Jace felt like putting his head back on the desk.

“No, it’s only if there’s a threat on a scale that the locals can’t –“

“So I suppose Ravnica had better get some of their own world-eating monsters then, if we’re to keep the attention of our own damn Guildpact.”

“It’s not like that at all!” Jace bristled. “This isn’t a game to me, Zarek, I care about Ravnica as much as anyone.”

“So what happens when Ravnica needs you, and you’ve got somewhere else to be. Which one will come first?”

“Ral, that’s not–“

“Which. One.”

They glared at each other for a long moment. Sparks were flashing dangerously close to some of the papers, but at the moment Jace couldn’t care if the whole office went up in flames. Why did Ral have to be so _dense_ about this?

“Depending on the situation,” he said as slowly as he could, “I might have to put my oath to the Gatewatch first, but only–“

Ral didn’t wait to hear anymore. He threw up his hands and let the electricity arcing between them drain into his canister, already storming back to the door. Papers flew in every direction as a gust of cold air swept through the room, accompanied by a tiny thunderclap. Jace collapsed back into his chair, angry and frustrated and, for some incomprehensible reason, almost sad.

**Author's Note:**

> This is third in the series bc I've written it third, and who cares about continuity? Not me.
> 
> join me on [tumblr!](hoard-smelter.tumblr.com)


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